Preventing Childhood Malaria Deaths in Mashegu

Tungan Habu is a rural community that suffers chronic social neglect ranging from inadequate healthcare services to poor water and sanitation facilities. The advent of Covid-19 in year 2020, has made the living condition of the people worse as local authorities grapple with the socioeconomic hardship that the pandemic brought with it.  Furthermore, the community also hosts hundreds of Internally Displace Persons (IDPs) who fled their own communities and villages due to attacks by armed bandits; Frequent abductions and violent attacks on roads leading to the villages and communities like Tunga Habu have made it nearly impossible for government/partners supply trucks from making rounds to supply essential medicines and other health commodities to health facilities especially in these rural communities.

 According to reports from the local primary health care authority, Tungan Habu ranks as high risk due to her high malaria burden especially among infants, young children and pregnant women.

This mobile clinic outreach which happened in early August 2021 at Tungan Habu was prompted by community elders in the community asking Physicians for Social Justice (PSJ) to assist their community and alleviate their suffering by providing medical relief and aid to their vulnerable populations of women, children and elderly and young.

With support donors through GlobalGiving Foundation, PSJ partnered with the community stakeholders to conduct an integrated Mobile Clinic Outreach where their vulnerable populations including pregnant women and children under 5 (U5) were provided with free life-saving medical services including; Free malaria testing and treatment and provision of multivitamins for pregnant/lactating mothers, as well as other primary health care services such as free diagnosis and treatment of common ailments and infectious diseases such as typhoid, ulcers, respiratory tract infections, etc.

For the malaria component of the integrated outreach, a total of 289 persons were tested including 113 children-under-five, 92 pregnant women, 66 non-pregnant women and 18 men were tested for malaria. 179 persons including 79 children-under five, 54 pregnant women, 39 non-pregnant women and 7 men tested positive for malaria and were all treated free of charge, thanks to the generous donations from you our donors.

The community beneficiaries were full of gratitude to our GlobalGiving donors for their generous donations and which made the outreach possible.